What you don’t use, you lose.

I have seen people, who were extraordinary public speakers, struggle to stamp the same mark on the dais a few years later, for they’ve lost touch with public speaking. I have seen well-educated women, who after having become homemakers confined themselves to the four walls, struggle with their fluency in communication. I have seen outstanding singers unable to achieve the level of performance they are capable of, for they have stopped practicing.

Why is it that I am not able to exert my left hand as much as my right hand? Simple, I have put my right hand to greater use than my left hand. You develop the muscles you use and lose the ones you don’t use. Most cardiac problems are the result and effect of the heart not being made to work to its maximum capacity. The heart that is made to work keeps working. So is the case with every part of your body… The human body is designed to wear out over a lifetime, but we shrink this lifetime by allowing the body to rust.

If you don’t use it, you lose it.

Unused money devalues. Unused talent diminishes. Unused potential decays. Unused machinery gets rusted. Unused time dies. Unused knowledge becomes a burden. What isn’t used is abused.

It reminds me of the biblical parable of talents, where the master, before going on a journey, called his three servants and entrusted them with different talents, On the return of the master, the first servant said he had added five more talents to the five entrusted. The second servant said he had added two more talents to the two entrusted. The master was pleased and he told both of them, “You were faithful with a few things. So, I will put you in charge of many things.’ The third servant returned the only talent entrusted without using it, and the master said, ‘Take away the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents.

Matthew 25:29 states, “For, to everyone who has shall more be given, and he shall have abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.”

The tragedy of life isn’t the ultimate death, but the resources that die within you when you are still alive.Let us not die while we are still breathing.

Use it or you will lose it.

Let the good make noise.

An aspiring youth joined a daily as an apprentice. After three days of rigorous training and induction, he was asked to go to the field and come back with a story worth publishing. After toiling through the streets and braving the heat for close to six hours, he was returning to office with a sense of failure as he hadn’t collected a worthwhile story. He came to a junction where three roads met in a Y’ formation. He noticed two buses speeding towards the junction from the two opposite roads, oblivious of what they were heading for. An accident seemed almost inevitable. The young reporter used his presence of mind, ran to the meeting point of the two roads, vigorously waved both his hands, screamed at the top of his voice and eventually succeeded in stopping both the buses. Hundreds of passengers from both the buses took the youth’s hand into theirs and thanked him… some even kissed him. However, on hearing this heroic story from the young reporter, the editor of the newspaper sacked him saying, “You missed a golden opportunity of a dramatic story worthy of headlines.”

We do not live in a bad world. Its just that the bad makes news. In a world where the bad makes so much noise, we need more and more avenues through which the good too will begin to make noise. We cannot remain taciturn anymore. Smoking, drinking, chewing and many other harmful habits are advertised enough; but what is available to brainwash the world on all the good activities?

Tax evaders make headlines… instead, why not a story on the front page about the taxpayers? The photos of murderers are flashed… instead, why not that of lifesavers? Why not a story about a soldier every day?

Go out into the world and speak all the good you know of all the people. Tell your friends about the virtues of your parents. Let everyone in your club know how proud you are of your children. Stick a bulletin about all the qualities you admire in your teachers. Gossip more and more about all the extraordinary things ordinary people around you are doing every day of their lives. Write to your in-laws about how blessed you are to have their child as your spouse. Shout, scream, write, speak, blow the trumpet, make noise… make noise… about all the good that you can see. Let us together impress the world and impress upon the world that our world is actually a good world…